Harborcreek unfairly criticized: Letters to the editor

I find it disturbing to read letters from other communities slamming Harborcreek for the demise of the intermodal rail terminal. How nice that it wasn't planned for their backyard.

Some even claimed that it wouldn't have been that loud or polluting. Really? Trains unloading crates onto huge diesel trucks every five minutes and then driving through our communities and school zones is more than just an inconvenience.

Living on the east side, we have learned from past mistakes. It took 20 years to clean up Presque Isle Bay from the waste that companies dumped into it. Erie Coke Corp. continues to affect our air. A proposed tires-to-energy plant and other proposals will continue to plague our communities unless our voices are heard.

If we are keeping Erie in the Dark Ages, let me tell you what you will find right now in Harborcreek: many new businesses that thrive and provide jobs along Buffalo Road; safe travel zones for our grade schools and high schools; traffic patterns that support our firemen and emergency crews; plus clean air and soil that provide incomes to many of our fruit farmers.

Come to Harborcreek and smell the rich aroma of our grapes during harvest time -- not diesel fuel or traffic jams. Thank you, state Rep. Curt Sonney and our township supervisors for listening to the little people you serve so well. We were never against the progress the rail system would have provided, but the site was clearly wrong.

Marie CatraboneHarborcreek

Erie's a little

scary now

Glad to hear from Erie vets that the Erie Veterans Affairs Medical Center is good.

Is there a god, the God, or no god? The answer won't appear here, because we won't know until after death but we can choose and I have. A song says, "Don't ask me how to prove to you why I know God is there. ... I don't pretend to be so wise, I only know he touched (me) and nothing else (has ever been the same)."

Tourism and stabbings/shots fired, day or night, east or west, even at Waldameer. Is the Erie Zoo or a Presque Isle beach next?

Money for jobs without a plan? A wise no, Mayor Joe Sinnott. Erie offers many opportunities for the young to learn besides on the streets or even in schools. Why aren't they taking advantage of them? Every opportunity taken, listed on a resume, can enhance obtaining a job.

As a transplant to Erie, I love it here but find it a little scary now, and want to see the possibilities move forward. There are so many resources here if just used, with less pessimism.

Life can be hard but if there's never a problem, we never know how to solve it. I can attest to this also that God was by my side through the problems to reach this age or I wouldn't have made it with sanity.

P. AllenErie

Trooper numbers

alarmingly short

The Pennsylvania State Police are responsible for the primary law enforcement duties for more than 85 percent of the commonwealth. That number is only increasing as more local municipalities move to eliminate their forces as they address local budget shortfalls.

As legislators returned to Harrisburg this month to debate and pass a budget for 2014-15, it's important to understand what the current proposed funding level for cadet classes will mean for Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association projects our state will still be 400 troopers below complement by the end of the next fiscal year, leaving our department with more vacancies than at any other time in recent history. Looking toward the 2015-16 fiscal year, expected retirements will overwhelm the department's ability to keep pace with vacancies if we enter into that year more than 400 below complement.

The PSTA certainly understands these are difficult economic times, but one of the core functions of government is public safety. We urge the Corbett administration and Legislature to recognize this most vital function of state government and increase the funding to provide for additional cadet classes.

Joseph R. KovelPennsylvania State

Troopers Association, Harrisburg

'Parasite class'

grows large

The future of our republic will not be restored by selecting the right combination of career politicians who are committed to party-line talking points. We, the working class, the providers who bust our tails every day, must recognize that this is a struggle between the host and the parasites, not Democrats and Republicans.

"Parasite: 2. a person who habitually lives at the expense of others; sponger."

The parasite class are all the undeserving who leech in one or multiple ways on the host (we, the providers). We must get beyond the naivety and the media-promoted notion of this being a struggle between Democrats and Republicans.

The parasite class has grown to a majority and is likely unbeatable at the ballot box.

When our nation's heroes, the very men and women who gave the most for the benefit of others, the veterans, can be sacrificed, while leeches in the parasite class give themselves bonuses, our country has descended to unforgivable depths.

Only a complete makeover, new public servants truly committed to upholding their oath to the Constitution, and a return to the Christian principles on which this country was founded provide a chance of restoring something we can be proud to hand our posterity.

Blaise V. DornischJohnsonburg

Apostles' faith

teaches lesson

In G. Wesley Bennett's letter, he equates belief in Jesus' resurrection to belief in the Easter Bunny and leprechauns ("Pragmatic Jesus view rejected," Erie Times-News, May 15). And he suggests that human beings are very gullible for believing in ideas with little or no evidence.

I teach religious education at St. Andrew's to junior high students. When they question the truth of the resurrection or even the existence of Jesus, I try to convince them with this argument: Jesus' followers had just seen their leader arrested, tried, tortured and crucified. All the miracles and signs he performed and all the wonderful words of wisdom he spoke couldn't help him. "That Jesus, a smart guy, lots a nice ideas, but just a man after all."

They were hiding, frightened and confused. Put yourself in their position. What would you do? Me? I would have gone back to my former life -- fishing, carpentry, shepherd, whatever, and hoped that no one would recognize me. But something happened to these disciples. Something turned them from being a frightened group in hiding to a group of evangelists unafraid to bear witness to Christ. That something had to be the resurrection. They traveled all over the world and many died a martyr's death. Would you do that for a fraud?

From that small group, Christianity has grown to more than 1.3 billion people. All gullible? Victims of someone's wild imagination?